The Collaborator of Bethlehem

Something glimmered in a puddle by the wall. Omar Yussef bent and picked out an empty cartridge. Shaking the water off it, he felt in his pocket and took out the cartridge he had found in the grass where Louai Abdel Rahman died. He compared the two. They were identical as far as he could tell, bigger and longer than rifle bullets. He had seen rifle bullets before, lying on the desk in Khamis Zeydan’s office; they would be like pinkies next to a ring finger if you placed them side by side with one of the casings in Omar Yussef’s hand. Khamis Zeydan had identified the first cartridge as belonging to a MAG and also said that there were no other such guns in Bethlehem, so Tamari’s famous machine gun must have been on this roof. Unless Hussein Tamari lent it to someone that night, the head of the Martyrs Brigades must have been here when George Saba confronted them.

Omar Yussef could see nothing else on the roof. He slipped the two cartridges into his pocket. They tinkled against the Webley. The Israelis have excellent surveillance equipment, he thought. Maybe they can see right through my jacket and pick out two spent cartridges and a uselessly antiquated gun in my pocket. As he left the roof, he thought that the Israelis would care nothing about the Webley or the MAG casings. Only he understood just how dangerous those objects were.

Chapter 9

When Omar Yussef reached his car, the sullen, young gunman who had tried to intimidate him glared suspiciously. Omar Yussef wondered how long this kid would last. The youngster surely would run as soon as he heard the growl of a tank coming over the hill from the settlement, but the soldiers might get him anyway. Or he might become lazy and step out where a sniper could pick him off. It was no wonder he was aggressive and tense, but that didn’t make Omar Yussef any more sympathetic toward him. He started his old Peugeot and spun the car around on the narrow road. The gunman jumped out of the way. Omar Yussef watched him step off the curb and glower after the car as it dropped down the hill.

Before he left Beit Jala, Omar Yussef pulled into a parking lot fronting a row of shops. A group of gunmen clustered before the grilled chicken restaurant on the corner. The restaurant was shuttered and wouldn’t open until the end of the day’s Ramadan fasting. Omar Yussef gave the gunmen a scornful glance and mounted the steps to the platform that ran along the shopfronts. As he passed through the clutch of gunmen, they stepped aside politely. “Joyful morning, uncle,” one of them said.

Before Omar Yussef could think, he returned the greeting: “Morning of light.”

The gunmen went on talking quietly. Omar Yussef wondered at himself. He was so angry with their general rudeness that his resentment was particularly acute at a rare moment such as this when they behaved well. Do I need so much to blame them for all the things that are wrong in our society that I can’t even see them as human beings any more? Perhaps they’ve been up all night on patrol, he thought. Some of them, at least, are willing to sacrifice their family lives for what they consider to be their duty. Some of them die for it, too.

Omar Yussef came to a dingy storefront. The picture window was covered by a gray venetian blind. He opened the door. A middle-aged woman rose from behind her desk when she saw him. She was thick around the middle, but well dressed. She wore an Yves St. Laurent scarf around her neck, and earrings by the same designer gleamed from her fleshy lobes.

“Welcome, Abu Ramiz,” she said. She reached out her hands to hold his shoulders and kissed Omar Yussef on each cheek.

“Nasra, you have a new haircut,” Omar Yussef said.

The woman’s hair was short at the sides, blow-dried and combed back. It was a deep red, though Omar Yussef knew that this was not her natural color.

“Do you like it, Abu Ramiz? I have to keep looking young or Abu Jeriez will fire me and hire a pretty little girl.”

“That will be the day his business fails. He always tells me you run everything.”

Nasra gave a deep, smoky laugh and guided Omar Yussef to the office at the back of the room. The door opened and Charles Halloun looked out.

“Abu Ramiz, I knew it must be you. No one makes Nasra laugh as you do,” he said. He grasped Omar Yussef’s hand and pulled him into the office. He nodded at Nasra to prepare coffee.

Charles Halloun seated Omar Yussef on the couch and only then did he sit at its other end. His hair was black and trim. He had a long, shapeless nose and thick, agile eyebrows. He wore a check tweed sport coat, a brown cardigan, and a brown woolen tie. He looked like a bumbling old Oxford don.

Halloun’s father had been accountant to Omar Yussef’s father. The sons now kept the same relationship.

“You just missed your son, Abu Ramiz. He was here to deliver some papers. His account is fast becoming one of my biggest jobs.” Halloun rubbed the bulbous end of his nose. “Ramiz inherited your brains, I must say. Mobile phones are an amazing business.”

“Ramiz is very smart. But I can’t claim so much credit for that. I don’t understand at all how these phones work.”

“As long as the cash isn’t counterfeit, who cares where it comes from?” Charles Halloun laughed, twirling the pointed end of his eyebrow.

Nasra brought in two coffees and a glass of water. Like the Sabas, Nasra and Halloun were Christians who knew that Omar Yussef didn’t observe Ramadan and would enjoy a drink.

“God bless your hands,” Omar Yussef said.

“Blessings. How is Umm Ramiz?” Nasra asked.

“Well.”

“And Zuheir and Ala?”

“Zuheir is visiting us later this month. He’s coming in from Wales to celebrate the Eid with us. Ala just changed his job and is selling computers in New York.”